Nokia, LG, Samsung Help Boost Handset Industry, Report Says

ABI Research reports that 269 million handsets shipped in the second quarter of 2009, which "bodes well" for the second half the year. Nokia, LG and Samsung all showed market share growth, while Sony Ericsson, Motorola and RIM saw contractions.

While the global economy remains stagnant, 269 million mobile
handsets were shipped in the second quarter of 2009, according to ABI
Research.
The figure bodes well for the second half of 2009, according to Jake Saunders, ABI Research's vice president of forecasting.

"Shipments should build sequentially in a constructive manner with [the
fourth quarter of 2009] potentially returning the industry to better
sales form," said Saunders in a statement.

Nokia exceeded expectations for the quarter, reporting
smartphone sales of 16.9 million units for the second quarter, compared
to 13.7 million units in the first quarter of 2009. Its market share
rose to 38.3 percent, which ABI describes in the statement as a
"remarkable swing in fortunes."

Samsung, which boosted its market share by 1.45 percent to a total of
19.4 percent, and LG, which grew 2.2 percentage points to 11.1 percent,
both carried out refreshes of their smartphone lines and performed
"particularly well," according to ABI.

As a result of the refreshes, ABI adds that it "will be interesting to
see how Nokia's market share holds up in the [second half of 2009]."

"It is well documented that smartphones are proving to be one of the
main engines of growth, but they are not just benefiting the Tier 1
players," said Kevin Burden, ABI practice director, in the statement.
"A number of Tier 3 vendors are also making headway in a competitive
market, including Apple and HTC but also vendors such as Huawei and
ZTE. While a consolidation is widely expected in the industry, it will
not be happening in 2009."

Pressures to consolidate, said ABI, are coming from a tighter
integration between hardware, operating system and applications
development. The average selling price for smartphones is higher than
the overall average, and research and development price tags, explained
ABI, "can only go up."

ABI reported that it is revising its forecast 2009 contraction from
negative 8.1 percent, or 1.11 billion, to negative 7.5 percent.

Michelle Maisto has been covering the enterprise mobility space for a decade, beginning with Knowledge Management, Field Force Automation and eCRM, and most recently as the editor-in-chief of Mobile Enterprise magazine. She earned an MFA in nonfiction writing from Columbia University, and in her spare time obsesses about food. Her first book, The Gastronomy of Marriage, if forthcoming from Random House in September 2009.